The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat welcomed honorary member, Mayor Ted Clugston to the meeting today and enjoyed a quick review of the State of the City. Mayor Ted is in his second term as Mayor and has now been on City Council for over 10 years. He started by introducing the current council, and by talking about making Medicine Hat a municipal environment where people want to "Live/Work/Play". Mayor Ted spoke about the transition from huge capital projects, such as the river flood berms and the Canalta Center to seeing those projects augmented with Private Developments that complement that work.
Ted spoke about the development of large scale commercial in the City's SE quadrant and the massive new industries such as HUT8, Aurora and Folium. He also spoke about the "patient" money being invested by the private sector, who see it as a good time to build for a future which is much brighter.
He talked about the Financially Fit program, which adjusted City revenues for the loss of the large Energy Dividend, and touched on a number of other timely issues.
He was asked about Supervised Consumption site, about Utility Bill charges and for an update on the Energy Division exploration program. Certainly it could have gone on a long time, but Ted had to run to take part in the announcement on a Ronald MacDonald house adjacent to the hospital (a blessing for families dealing with illness). He was thanked by President Chris for a great talk.